The new cheaper iPhone that Apple will unveil to a global audience on Tuesday is being produced under illegal and abusive conditions in Chinese factories owned by one of America's largest manufacturing businesses, investigators have claimed.

Apple's next iPad - dubbed the "iPad 5" by observers - will be significantly less wide and thinner than its forebear while keeping the same screen size, according to leaked parts shown on a US gadget site.

Google has been hit by the departure of one of its leading talents. Xiaomi Tech, a fast-growing Chinese maker of cheap smartphones, has hired Hugo Barra, a senior Google Android executive, to spearhead its nascent global expansion.

Running Microsoft is not for the fainthearted: its software is essential to millions of companies around the world, and more than 1 billion people use PCs with its Windows software. The new chief executive will have to fit into a unique corporation.